Federal Writers' Project – Life Histories/2020/Spring/Section25/B.M. Balbontin

B.M. Balbontin was a man in the brewery business in the early 1900s, during the time beginning of prohibition.

B.M. Balbontin
Born	1863 Santander, Spain
Died	unknown
Occupation	Brewery Warehouses, Tax Appraiser
Spouse(s)	unknown

Biography

Balbontin was born in 1863 in Santander, Spain and lived there until he moved to Mobile, Alabama in 1873 at the age of 10. It was there that he began to work as a waiter of a store and barroom. He then went into business with a partner who owned a bar/billiard room. They had a falling out and in 1889, he moved to Tampa, Florida. He got married in 1890 to a woman not named and had one girl and two boys. The two boys are the only ones still living. Balbontin then made cigars for only one week in Florida before becoming the foreman of the factory of Monet Hnos. That factory then shut down due to the type of tobacco they worked with and he went to another job until 1893. It was this year that he established his own barroom and was also elected as appraiser of taxes for the city. He continued this until 1901, when he then started up in the wholesale way in the business of warehouses. Then in 1905 he combined his warehouse business with the brewery business. He did this until 1909 when he retired from the brewery business and began the wholesale liquor business and made this his career until 1918, the time of prohibition. He gave many cocktails to Theodore Roosevelt in Tampa and exclaims it was one of the highlights of his career.

Social Issues

Prohibition

With the rising bar scene and the United States entering in World War 1, the government added the 18th Amendment to the constitution and took effect January 17, 1920. Such a law was put in place due to many reasons. One reason being that it was viewed as unspiritual and a substance that broke marriages and families apart. Another reason and strong force behind this was urban growth and the Anti Saloon League, who viewed saloon culture as ungodly. Initially it started off as a simple wartime measure to save on grain needed for the war but it turned out lasting until 1933. This led to a heavy incline in illegal alcohol production and sales. Enforcement of this new law was very difficult and it showed. This illegal manufacturing of alcohol, also known as bootlegging, occured in hidden rooms and bars, which also led to a rise in mafia activity. The 21st Amendment, which repealed the 18th amendment, was ratified in 1933. The need for the jobs and revenue created by liquor sales was much needed once the Great Depression hit in 1932.

Immigration in the South in the 1900s

After the depression of the 1890s, the United States saw a surge in immigrants from all over Europe. Ethnic neighborhoods were where many of these immigrants called home in America. In these neighborhoods they could speak their own language and enjoy their own cultures. Many of the jobs they were forced to work at had horrible conditions that earned them a measly pay. A lot of native whites looked down upon these people and thought they were changing the country in a negative way, especially with the start of World War 1. Due to the war, immigration began to decline and the standards and limitations for immigrants to come to America began to increase. In 1965, Congress passed the Immigration and Neutrality Act that saw a shift in the areas immigrants were now coming from.

References

Andrews, Kenneth , and Charles Seguin. 2015. “Group Threat and Policy Change: The Spatial Dynamics of Prohibition Politics, 1890–1919.” American Journal of Sociology 121 (2). https://www-journals-uchicago-edu.libproxy.lib.unc.edu/doi/10.1086/682134.

Bistro, Andrew . 2018. “Testing the Symbolic Properties of Alcohol Prohibition in Hermann, MO.” Crime, Law, and Social Change 71 (September): 365–401. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10611-018-9793-8.

Duis, Perry . 1975. “The Saloon in a Changing Chicago .” Chicago History 4 (4): 214–24. https://search.proquest.com/docview/1370713168?pq-origsite=360link.

Noonan, Alexander . 2016. “‘What Must Be the Answer of the United States to Such a Proposition?’ Anarchist Exclusion and National Security in the United States.” Journal of American Studies 50 (2): 347–76. https://search.proquest.com/docview/1777285073?pq-origsite=360link.

Weisberger, Bernard. 1994. “A Nation of Immigrants .” American Heritage 121 (1). http://web.a.ebscohost.com.libproxy.lib.unc.edu/ehost/detail/detail?vid=0&sid=e369a79d-81f2-45cc-8239-ed780d4b5ed2%40sessionmgr4006&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#AN=9401267533&db=aph.